


The Winning Side

by notunbroken



Category: Major Crimes (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, let's get these idiots a house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9241184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notunbroken/pseuds/notunbroken
Summary: At the hands of an unseen adversary, Sharon's negotiation skills are put to the test.





	

Sharon slides out of the car and slams the door behind her. Andy is still pocketing his keys on the driver's side when she sets off toward the house, her heels clicking along the driveway.

He rounds the hood of his Explorer, trailing her, weighing his options. He ends up going with a neutral approach. “Uh...babe?”

She slows enough to look back, staring at him over her glasses. “We need to end this.”

Her eyes are sharp, posture set, mouth fixed into a hard line. Andy could offer up a token calming word or two, try to talk her down. Instead, he gives her a firm nod. Sharon is primed for a battle, which she just might find within this house. 

She wants to take the lead on this and he’s more than happy to provide reinforcement as needed. Otherwise, he's satisfied to watch. This side of her, now that he’s most often an observer instead of a recipient, can be breathtaking, not unlike a lightning storm. 

Of course, those have been known to set off wildfires...

_God help whoever’s on the other side of this door._

Climbing the porch steps, her pace slows enough for Andy to catch up. He places his palm at the small of her back. “Are we going with any particular strategy?”

She shakes her head once, tight. “Just get them to reconsider.”

After a cursory glance through the front window, Sharon presses the latch on the front door. Unlocked, it swings open with minimal resistance. She steps onto the tile floor of the entryway. Andy follows, closing the door behind them.

Even with morning light streaming through half the windows, the espresso-stained wood floors keep the space dark. Andy has to blink a few times, forcing his eyes to adjust. With ambient noise shut beyond the door, voices echo off the house's bare surfaces. The sound seems to float from the back of the house. After trading a glance, he and Sharon set off in that direction, through the living room, past the stairway, down the hall, into the wide doorway of the combined dining room and kitchen.

A well-dressed woman leans against the marble-topped island. She notices their entrance with a start, her back straightening like a bolt. “Holy shit, did you call the cops?”

“Wh-what?” Their realtor, Jason, has his back to the door, oblivious to their arrival.

Sensing an opening, Andy asks, “Why, are you doing something illegal?”

“Oh, no! No,” Jason's head swivels from the doorway to the island, and back again. He forces a half-choked laugh. “Robin, these are my clients, the ones who made an offer on this house,” he holds out his arm in their direction, “Sharon and Andy.” He spins toward them, talking through a smile stretched tighter than a guitar string. “What are you _doing_  here?”

“You said there’s a problem with our offer,” Sharon says.

“Well, I, uh…” Jason glances back to Robin, “there is a _problem_ , yes.”

Recovered from her scare, Robin plants her hands on her hips. “The so-called problem is that my clients have decided to accept another offer.”

This is what they'd feared after an earlier, vague text from Jason. After months of searching, several large-scale setbacks, and this one perfect house, they were about to be dragged back to the beginning. At the edge of Andy's vision, Sharon rolls her shoulders backward. 

When she speaks, her tone matches the careful precision of her posture. “Another offer. After our offer was already accepted.”

“ _Preliminarily_  accepted,” Robin clarifies, lowering her hand in a chopping motion to emphasize her words.

Andy narrows his eyes at the clarification. “What the hell does that mean?”

Jason jumps in. “It means ‘unofficial, before the real-thing—’”

“I know the definition of ‘preliminary’, Jason.” He nods at Robin. “What does it mean here?”

With an impatient huff of breath, Robin says, “I want you to know this is _all_  highly irregular.”

Angling her head just so, Sharon says, “What, your sellers backing out on an offer they claimed they’d accept?”

“No,” Robin parries, “prospective buyers showing up to what I meant to be a notification... _not_  a negotiation.” She shoots a look at Jason before nodding back to Sharon. “And you’re armed, no less.”

Sharon looks down, then buttons her jacket to cover her holster. She sniffs, indignant. “We’re on duty.”

“Look,” Andy says, “we happened to be nearby, on our way downtown, when we got Jason's message. We figured, why not roll past, see what’s going on?”

After a long pause, Robin says, "A highly motivated buyer relocating from Salt Lake City reached out to the owners—”

“Reached out how?” Andy asks.

Robin lifts her shoulder, then casts her hands wide. “A fruit basket with a handwritten letter explaining their situation.”

“A fruit basket.” Sharon’s voice is low, tinting the words with contempt enough to fit a low-level drug dealer, or maybe a reckless driver. She rubs at her temple.

“Yes,” Robin says, stretching the word out into an ill-advised question. “And a letter, explaining why this is the perfect home for their family. The yard, the pool, the excellent local schools, and so on.”

Sharon slowly cuts her eyes to Andy. He’s sure to be mirroring the frown she wears. Robin continues talking, unbothered by their silent exchange. “Sometimes that personal touch can do wonders for convincing a seller to accept an offer.” She smirks at Jason. “I’m surprised your agent hasn’t told you that.”

An unexpected wave of protectiveness hits Andy. Jason might be a little on the spacey side, and Sharon still hasn’t forgiven him for calling them at seven in the morning on an investigation-free Saturday, but he’s run his ass off trying to find them a house. He might be unsuccessful thus far, but it isn’t from a lack of trying.

“Hey, our _personal touch_  efforts might be lacking, but that has nothing to do with Jason.”

With the familiarity of someone who’s interrogated countless criminals next to him, Sharon flanks his argument. She makes her point with a pointed nonchalance that outstrips Robin’s. “It’s more to do with our, I guess you’d call it a _distraction,_  of working to pull a murderer off the streets of this city at the time we submitted our offer.”

“Streets not so far from here, actually,” Andy adds.

“Hm, true.” Sharon half-turns to him, a glint in her eyes. With that, they’ve found their angle. In a blink, her tone softens. “Do you suppose that the careful parents from Utah know about the recent uptick of violent crime in this neighborhood?”

Andy rubs at his chin, making a show of thinking through her point. Robin likely doesn’t know, and doesn’t need to know, that the ‘recent uptick’ is to one homicide from a grand total of zero for the last seven years. “I dunno. But there’s always the chance they’ll see it on the news when they come out for the inspection.”

“Between all that and the planned move of the neighborhood school...” Sharon adds.

“Oh, right. LAUSD is in deep with that. Pretty controversial stuff.”

As another faux-aside, Sharon says, “I’m shocked that a young family would be so eager to settle in here.”

Robin clears her throat. Her skepticism bleeds through when she says, “But you’re just fine with living in such a _dangerous _neighborhood.”

Andy shrugs. “We see dead bodies every day.”

“Well, a few times a week,” Sharon says.

“Plus, as you pointed out,” he pats the bulge of his holster, “we’re armed.”

As Robin’s face twists into a grimace, Jason clarifies, “Because they’re homicide detectives! LA’s finest, steadily employed by the city!” He holds his arm out to them like he’s Vanna White and they’re the Wheel of Fortune board. “Sharon’s a captain, Andy’s a lieutenant! I’ve seen their work firsthand, it’s really something.”

“Firsthand? What do you—”

“Their division solved Heather Lutz’s murder,” he adds.

However much goodwill they may have gained with Robin so far, it disappears with the mention of the now long-dead and apparently not-missed realtor. “Oh,” she says, pursing her lips. “How wonderful.”

Before he can think of a way to counter this unwanted revelation, Andy’s phone starts buzzing from his coat pocket. He pulls it out to check the screen. What he finds is unsurprising, given that a glance to his watch tells him they’re running almost a half-hour late.

“It’s Provenza. He’s probably calling from the morgue.”

Robin whispers toward Jason, mouth pulled into a frown. “The _morgue_?”

“Yeah. The morgue,” Andy replies to her in kind. “Hard to have a murder case without a body.”

Sharon steals his attention with her hand on his forearm. “Can you let him know we’re going to be a few minutes?”

“Sure thing.” He glances to the others before setting off toward the front door. “Yell if you need backup.”

“Oh,” her lips curl into a grin that’d put the fear of God into anyone paying attention. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

Even the Los Angeles housing market is no match for a scorned Sharon Raydor.

———

As Andy retreats to the porch, Sharon draws a deep breath, considering the woman planted in the middle of her future kitchen. The homicide story didn’t faze Robin, and she seems unconcerned that a fruit basket and sappy letter could tip the balance of this sale.

That gives Sharon something to work with, even if it means crossing a line she considers inappropriate for what is, at its core, a business deal.

“Okay,” she forces a slight laugh into a sigh, shaking her head. “You want to hear about being highly motivated? I bought my condo because it was the perfect size for me, with an extra room in case one of my kids decided to visit. It got a little tight when I took in my son as a foster about five years ago. But we made it work.

“Then, against every odd in the book,” Sharon hooks a thumb toward the front door, “I found myself involved with this guy I’ve known for about 25 years." She throws in the detail that always seems to interest people: "I didn’t even _like _ him for most of that time. And now, obviously, we live together. Still in my condo.” She draws a long breath, leaning forward far enough into the doorway to check that Andy is still outside on the phone.

Satisfied on that front, she straightens and continues, “I love them both, I really do, but there’s now one me, two men, and _one bathroom_  in that unit and the situation is becoming dire.”

When Robin lets her mouth drop open without speaking, Sharon takes the opportunity to add, “I suppose there’s a context under which this could be considered a bonding experience for the three of us, but that went out the window about the time Andy had his heart attack—”

“Oh my God,” Robin gasps, bringing her hand to her chest.

“—because that set us back several months on the whole house hunt, turning what was supposed to be a short-term living arrangement into something not-so-short-term.”

With a slow shake of her head, Robin says, “I — I had no idea about any of that.” Now she's almost glaring at Jason.

"It's been a difficult time." Sharon isn’t used to negotiating from behind, so she’s damned well going to push forward while she has an opening. “On the more practical side, I’m sure Jason has told you that we come to the table without contingencies, since Andy’s house sold so long ago…”

“No, he didn’t mention that.”

“Oh.” Sharon fixes the man in question with a pointed stare before returning her attention to Robin. “Well, in that case, I should also make sure you know that we built some, let’s say, ‘wiggle room’ into our offer. Given the circumstances, bringing that into play might make us a little more attractive to your sellers, yes?”

 Jason looks between the women on either side of him, eventually settling on Sharon. “I was just getting into those specifics with Robin when you and Andy joined us.”

“Mmhmm.”

——--

Stuck on the porch as Provenza tries and fails to hold separate conversations on both ends of the line, Andy works to stay calm. He paces across the painted wood slats, peering inside the front window now and then, trying from afar to gauge the mood in the kitchen. Sharon seems less rigid than she was earlier, though that could be a trick of the dim light between her position and his.

“Flynn,” Provenza drawls, returning to his half of the conversation, “are you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

He clears his throat with force. “Since you and the Captain are missing the prelim,” he says, trying to turn the screws on a nonexistent guilt machine, “maybe you can head to Mr. Lowery’s place, look for something that might match up to the tox screen.”

“Uh-huh. Well, if someone needs to scope out the guy’s medicine cabinet, I’m sure Sharon would be okay with that.” Andy leaves out his most prominent thought, which is along the lines of, _Not that she’s going to be in a great mood after this, anyway_. “What kind of drugs should we look for?”

“Morales says bring anything and everything. Whatever you find can be used to narrow down the tests.”

“Can you text me the address?”

After a long moment of silence, Provenza says, “Flynn. You know I don’t text,” his voice thick with disbelief.

Andy rolls his eyes, “Well I don’t have anything to write on right now.”

“You have a brain, don’t you?”

Andy draws a long breath through his nose. He turns around for another lap of the porch, having every intention of telling Provenza to shove the drug search. But when he pivots and looks up through the window, Jason is crossing the living room toward the front door.

“Okay, Flynn, I have the address. Are you ready?” When he doesn’t answer, Provenza gets louder. “Flynn? Hello?! I know you’re there, goddamnit.”

Jason pulls the door open. His expression is unreadable.

“Yeah, okay, I gotta go.” Provenza is still ranting when Andy lowers the phone and hits the red button on its screen. He nods to Jason. “That’s it? It’s over?”

“Well, your girlfriend put my skills to shame,” Jason breaks into a smile and claps him on the shoulder. “But hell yes it’s over! I think you’ll find yourself with a new house here shortly.”

Andy’s mouth drops open. He’d been outside, what, five minutes? Now they have the leading offer? “You’re kidding me.”

“You doubt Sharon’s negotiating power?”

The man has a point. “Well, no. Not at all.” He tilts his head toward the kitchen. “I was more worried about Robin standing firm.”

“I think Sharon managed to find a common ground with her.” Jason makes a balancing motion with his hands. “Of course, part of that common ground involved more money…”

With Sharon being the more thrifty half of this house hunt, Andy can shrug off that concern. “If she signed off on it, we’re good.”

Through the window, Sharon and Robin slowly make their way to the door, both smiling. Catching Andy watching, Sharon gives him a discreet thumbs-up. He grins and shakes his head, taking in the porch from a new viewpoint. 

This is about to be his porch. _Their_  porch. It’s not abstract anymore, he and Sharon are buying _this house_ , after all their searching.

As the women join Andy and Jason outside, Robin is in the middle of explaining her next steps to Sharon. “...so I’ll chat with the current owners and see what they have to say. I’m not making any absolute promises, but I’m optimistic that this offer will exceed their expectations.”

“Sounds like good news.” Andy wraps his arm around Sharon’s back. At her hip, she twines her fingers with his. She’s practically beaming in her moment of victory.

“Closing your own sale,” Jason clasps his hands together at his waist. “That’s what I call hands-on house buying!”

Sharon lifts her chin in their realtor’s direction, sending a clear, silent message. Whatever happened in there, it hadn’t rebuilt her opinion of him. Andy softens the sentiment. “Well you did the legwork to find this place, it’s only fair we help with some of the heavy lifting.”

“Yes, well,” he lets out a high-pitched laugh. “Get ready to do _more_  heavy lifting.” When his joke doesn’t get the expected response, he explains, “Because you’ll...be moving…and...the boxes...”

Robin steps past this bumbling to shake Sharon’s hand, then Andy’s. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m glad you stopped by today.”

“Not as glad as we are, I think,” Sharon says as the warmth returns to her smile.

Andy adds, “Thanks for hearing us out, Robin.”

“My pleasure,” she replies, heading down the stairs. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

Jason trails her, tossing off a quick, “Hang in there,” near the bottom of the steps. But as he nears his car, the slump in his shoulders gives away his disappointment.”

Andy nods toward him. “I think Jason feels a little unwanted.”

“That wasn’t my intention,” Sharon says, keeping her voice carefully balanced. When she turns back to Andy, though, it takes on a hint of desperation. “I just _really_  wanted this house.”

She’s buoyant in a contagious way, now, planting her palms on his chest, tipping forward to kiss him. He holds her close, his hands clasped along her lower back. “I think we pulled it off.”

“Yes, I think we did.” She rests her head on his shoulder, angled toward the house. _Their_  house. 

“This is definitely your best deal yet.”

She giggles, the sound blending into her words. “In your unbiased opinion.”

“Yep,” he squeezes her hip for emphasis, dropping his voice to a low, conspiratorial register. “So how’d you pull it off?”

Her fingers curl around his lapel. “I remembered that the hardest part of driving a bargain is realizing the humanity of the person across the table.”

“That’s what our rivals in Utah knew, before we'd even considered it.”

Sharon hums her agreement. After a moment, she lifts her head, pulling back a bit. “They seriously sent a _fruit basket_.”

Andy scoffs. “Amateurs.”

This earns him another kiss, slow and sweet, tinged with pure happiness. She steps away, still smiling, keeping a hold of his hand. She’s radiant, scanning the porch. “Do you suppose we could fit some patio furniture in this corner? One of those sectional-style sets?”

In the strange position of needing to talk her down from a case of early-onset enthusiasm, he pauses. The last thing he wants to do is drag down her mood. Wincing, he eases into the topic. “Ah, should we wait to hear back from Robin before we start decorating?”

If Sharon sees this as a pin in her balloon, she doesn’t show it, shrugging lightly. “I have a good feeling about this.”

“Okay.” Her optimism is good enough for Andy. “But on our way to get a tape measure, let’s go look for some drugs.” When her eyebrow quirks upward, he clarifies, “At Jake Lowery's apartment.”

“Oh my God, the prelim!” She claps her free hand over her mouth, her eyes widening.

"We missed it." He opts to leave out the part about Provenza grouching up and down the morgue in their absence. "Or most of it, by this point."

"Oh," the sound is muffled and layered with surprised worry. After a moment, she drops her hand. "We should go, I guess."

"Probably."

Sharon clears her throat, glancing back through the large window into the living room. She squeezes his hand and releases it, her shoulders aligning into the tight line he reads as Work Mode. But when she heads for the steps, her mouth is tipped into a subtle grin, the kind Andy likes to think only he understands.

True to form, near the bottom of the steps she adds, "I'm serious about the patio set."

Of that, Andy has no doubt.

**Author's Note:**

> The show might let Sharon and Andy get a house without showing them tussling (metaphorically) with the real estate establishment, but I couldn't let that golden opportunity pass. Thanks for reading!


End file.
